


Artisan and Nothing

by jojotier



Category: Original Work
Genre: Creation Myth, Fantasy, Gen, Purple Prose, Witchcraft, dry writing tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 16:02:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20509700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jojotier/pseuds/jojotier
Summary: Morphellia's first myth, story, and the first being that ever existed.The Artisan, God of Creation and Queen of Silver Linings, dies alone and subsequently finally starts to live.





	Artisan and Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> SUPER BIG DISCLAIMER because I actually wrote this back in 2016 so it's in no way indicative of my writing style now... but dammit I felt like sharing anyway, haha.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

_ A Creation: The Artisan and Nothingness _

Once upon a time, in a land with a forest filled with trees but not one flower to be seen and only one moon to grace the sky at night, there lived a woman in black. She lived deep in the thicket, in a little shabby cottage that was falling apart at the seams and with beasts that often spoke to her with no malice in their red eyes. They were beasts of shadow, lurking in the night, all beasts who played the role of monsters in many lost fairytales and stories that lived in that world. She hid away with these creatures, keeping safe in the thick foliage of the plants and vines that wrapped themselves around everything.

It was one night, when a single moon was high in the sky, filling the forest with its silver glow and shades of blue. The woman in black was hidden away as always, walking through the shadows with grass and moss pushing up under her toes. It was then when the real monsters of her world came through, finally gathering up the courage to enter her wood and find what there was to see. One could imagine her surprise when, upon turning towards her little cottage, there were men who had chanced upon it! Humans who hated anything that wasn’t theirs, and even with the desolate place, they wanted the little bit that she had inside, all the things she had made. And what lovely things they were! Willowy wooden birds with clouds on their backs, butterflies with flowers blooming on their wings, fruits that had never before been seen in this strange mortal coil. The men wanted this all for themselves. 

One of them, a man who must have been a boy simply a few months before, was the one who saw her first. Just as they had done with the house, upon finding the lone woman in black, they hated the sight of her in her shimmering dress and spindly chestnut hair. 

When the youngest of them had cried, “Witchery!” the woman in black knew that she was lost. She tried to turn and flee, tried to leave her possessions and her house to their devices, but they would not let up. If she lived, then she would make more things for herself, and they would want all of those too. They decided then that the woman in black should no longer be allowed to create anything.

They gave chase, and soon they found her tangled in the thicket that had once shielded her, arms scarred by thorns and brambles and feet pierced through with sharpened wood. There she laid, crucified with a crown of moonlight glimmering on her brow and falling stars cascading down her cheeks. She cried out as they hit stones together, igniting sparks that fell upon the dry vegetation that she was encased in, and soon flames became her tomb. As hellfire burned her dress to ash, drying her tears and smothering her piercing wails, the men fled into the night to get what they thought that they deserved from the wood that would soon be burnt to nothing.

This is not, however, the story of men who disappeared after an act of inhumanity. This is the story of what happened when the woman in black woke up.

She was someplace never before seen by a human, a space that was entirely white. There was nothing as far as the eye could see. The woman in black moved through the nothingness for a time, simply walking and attempting to find its end, find where there was something. Eventually, after what seemed to be days, or perhaps even years, she decided that she would have to find some other way to leave. She seated herself on the ground, or perhaps she floated for a time in this cloudy white place, but eventually, what she found was a paintbrush in the pocket of her dress.

The woman in black looked at the paintbrush, and soon an idea began to form in her head. She had created back in her previous home- why would it be any different here? She raised the paintbrush and made a line in the air, expecting it to be invisible, since there was no paint to be found, but wanting to visualize a picture in her head. Instead, there was a small black line where she had traced.

Enchanted by this strange new power, she tried to imagine something to create, something that would lead to more ideas. The most natural thing for her to think of was a door. It would be a door to a new beginning, a new place where she would be free to leave the shadows and share her gift of creation. She stood, and soon she was painting a door of black wood, a simple brass handle being the only thing standing between herself and her vision. She opened it wide, and the woman stepped into the blankness on the other side, making nothing into Something. 

Wherever she stepped, grass sprung forth, with flowers in glowing shades that had previously only bloomed in her head. Above her head, a high, arching sky was erected, stars dotting it like diamonds sewn into black velvet. In her hands, she painted three moons, sending them up into the sky to provide nights cloaked in silver lining. Wherever she danced, beasts sprung around her, beasts that had once been shadows that had to be hidden away from view. Wherever she breathed out, a sweet wind would roll across the land, and wherever she dipped her hands into the earth, streams and lakes would sprout. The woman in black danced the night away, leaving behind her a world of meadows and before her a calm sea that stretched out to the horizon, rolling in a lovely mist. 

She willed it, and soon there were people in the world too, humans who were not cruel like the men who had killed her. They all grew to be able to think, and soon enough, the beginnings of civilization sprang forth. Looking upon this, the woman in black was pleased.

She went back to the door only to erect one final structure around it. There was an obsidian castle, a fortress of shadows that had once shielded her protecting the new inhabitants of her world from falling into a blankness that they could never understand. Around this castle she built mountains that reached their peaks up to the heavens, five mountains that were the Five Humors of all humanity. Behind the Door that led to this creation she filled the space behind with desert, to discourage any traveler. The woman in black had completed her world when the sun was beginning to rise in the west.

The woman in black soon became known to her creations as the Artisan, the God who Created. She had ascended from nothingness, and therefore, had become something grand. They say now that she still wanders the world, dressed in black with stars embedded in her hair, and that should anyone see her, they would truly be blessed indeed.


End file.
